Report on the methodology adopted by the Program Workgroup (GT Programa) of the Brazilian Organizing Committee (BOC) to determine which workshops would have simultaneous interpretation during the WSF 2005.

Meeting with the GT Programa in São Paulo (December 21)

The desiderata expressed by organizations who had registered a workshop during the WSF showed important quantitative and qualitative differences between the 11 different Thematic spaces (see INFO 3 ’Themes’).

Quantitative differences

Some Thematic spaces have many more workshops than others:

Thematic space

# of workshops

1

164

2

210

3

124

4

243

5

466

6

287

7

117

8

371

9

185

10

230

11

144

Qualitative differences

Thematic areas 1, 8, 9 and 11 contain the greatest number of workshops organized by non-Brazilian delegations, and in particular, the greatest number of activities from Asian and African organizations. For example, in Thematic space 9, 95 out of 185 workshops are organized by non-Brazilian organizations.

Assessing the needs for simultaneous translation

A precise analysis of the needs of events with simultaneous translation showed that Thematic spaces 1, 8, 9 and 11 needed more rooms with translation than Thematic spaces 3, 7 and 10.

After many discussions, it was agreed that the November proposal of 3 rooms with translation per Thematic space would be changed: certain areas would have 4 rooms, others would have only 2 rooms with translation. However, it was agreed that there would always be a balance between small/medium and big rooms: there would always be at least one small/medium room with translation in each Thematic space. Small/medium rooms would have as much weight as big rooms with regards to simultaneous translation.

Despite this change, there was still too few slots with translation available in Thematic spaces 1, 8, 9 and 11 to fulfill the needs in interpretation from many organizations from Asia and Africa. To solve this problem, the GT Programa proposed to increase the number of shifts in the rooms with translation in these Thematic areas from 3 per day to 4. Only the rooms with translation in Thematic spaces 1, 8, 9 and 11 will have a workshop scheduled in the 4th time-period. In all the other rooms in all Thematic areas, the 4th time-period is reserved for non-scheduled self-managed meetings.

A great number of smaller workshops required interpretation in languages other than EN, ES, FR, PT. Originally, Babels had planned on having only 2 booths in small rooms, 3 booths in medium-sized rooms, and 5 booths in big rooms. Because it would be difficult to have a workshop with, for instance, only PT and WO, the GT Programa and Babels agreed to remove one booth from the big rooms and to add one booth in the small rooms, so as to guarantee always at least 3 booths/languages per room, with the proviso that there would be at least one language other than EN, ES, FR, PT whenever possible in each room.

Conclusion

Rooms with translation:

Thematic space

Rooms w/ translation

Sessions/day

1 (E)

4

4

2 (C)

3

3

3 (D)

2

3

4 (B)

3

3

5 (J)

3

3

6 (I)

3

3

7 (K)

2

3

8 (F)

4

4

9 (G)

4

4

10 (A)

2

3

11 (H)

3

4

Youth Camp

3

3

Number of booths per room:

Size of room

Capacity

Number of booths

Small

100

3

Medium

200

3

Big

>600

4

List of rooms with translation equipment during the WSF-2005(Added on January 19)

NOTE: only the rooms listed below have translation equipment. Any event planned in rooms not listed below will not have translation by Babels-Nomad volunteers during the WSF-2005.

Thematic space

Room name

Capacity

x

Audit. Araújo Viana

4000

1

E103

100

1

E105

100

1

E203

200

1

E601

600

2

C102

100

2

C204

200

2

C603

600

3

D102

100

3

D601

600

4

B103

100

4

B201

200

4

B602

600

5

J113

100

5

J209

200

5

J605

600

6

I103

100

6

I207

200

6

I603

600

7

K103

100

7

K601

600

8

F106

100

8

F201

200

8

F204

200

8

F603

600

9

G101

100

9

G202

200

9

G204

200

9

G901

1000

10

A105

100

10

A601

600

11

H101

100

11

H202

200

11

H601

600

Youth Camp

4 rooms

?

Meeting with the BOC in São Paulo (January 5th)

To choose which workshops would have interpretation, the BOC adopted a number of criteria:
geographical origin: workshops organized by African and Asian delegations would have priority over workshops organized by European, North-American or Latin-American organizations;
information on language needs: workshops in which specific language requirements were given were systematically considered for allocation of rooms with translation; workshops in which the organizers had given no information on which languages would be spoken would be considered as low-priority;
workshops in which only PT and ES would be spoken were considered as a low-priority.

Due to the small number of volunteers for certain languages, Babels asked the BOC to give Babels precise information on the needs for languages other than EN, ES, FR, PT. This information enables Babels to ensure an optimal allocation of interpreters during the final booth-planning process. For instance, if there are only enough Babels volunteers to guarantee one RU booth, it is important that the workshops requiring RU do not overlap.

The deadline to establish the final program for the WSF2005, including information on which languages will be available in which workshops, is January 10, 2005.